AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’d do anything he wanted me to if he just said the fucking word.
But he still wasn’t coming over here and I couldn’t just sit here anymore, pretending that I was okay with it. I was not okay with it. I could barely breathe with missing him, and I hadn’t even left the country yet.
I had to see him, up close. I had to talk to him tonight.
I got up and excused myself from the table, and made my way toward him. I could drift right past him and out into the hallway beyond the head table, and maybe he’d pick up on my vibe and follow me.
But as I drifted closer, I got nervous. He was holding my gaze. And the closer I got, the more I could see him clearly.
The strain behind his eyes. The dark things that weighed on him, that he usually carried so well. They were heavy on him now, and he wasn’t smiling at me. He wasn’t undressing me with his eyes.
He was just staring at me like I was his universe, and the whole damn thing was about to split right open.
My heart was slamming in my chest and my hands were shaking. I was desperate to touch him, to hear what he was thinking.
Was he feeling what I was feeling right now? This terrible dread about saying goodbye tomorrow?
He’d removed his suit jacket during dinner and draped it on the back of his chair. As I passed behind him, I dared to drift my finger across his back, just lightly, between his shoulder blades. Where I knew he’d feel it through his shirt, but no one would likely see.
“Jolie.”
I startled as someone spoke my name, and when I looked up, Joss smiled at me. I stopped, and Shane’s brothers all looked at me. But he didn’t.
“Hi,” I said.
“I hope you’re enjoying yourself tonight,” Joss said. “You’ve worked hard on the wedding. Dad and Margot are so happy, thanks to you.”
“Oh. Uh, I didn’t do that much. Just kind of dove in at the eleventh hour to make sure it didn’t all fall apart.”
“You’re being modest,” Joss said easily. “Which seems to be usual for you. I hope I’m not embarrassing you. We just wanted to say thanks.”
“Yeah,” Darcy put in, “you stepping up meant way less wedding shit for me to think about, so thank you.”
My cheeks were burning. I didn’t really need the thanks or the attention. It was nice of them, though.
“You really don’t—”
“We do. Seriously,” Darcy said. “Any time anything wedding related came up this month, Dad and Margot were all, ‘Don’t worry, Jolie’s on it.’”
“Oh. Well, it was my pleasure.”
“From us,” Brandon said, and he pulled an envelope from inside his suit jacket and handed it to me.
“Uh, should I open this?” I darted a glance at Shane. I was standing kinda behind him, and he still wasn’t looking at me.
“Please do,” Brandon said.
I opened the envelope and found a small thank you card signed by all four of Jacob’s sons. And a small stack of gift cards.
“We know you like coffee, so…” Brandon said casually.
Uh, yeah… there were a couple of gift cards to cafés in here. There were also several for women’s clothing boutiques, one for a shoe store and one for a bookstore. “You guys, this is so generous. You really don’t owe me any gift—”
“Take it,” Joss said. “What’s a sister for, if her brothers can’t spoil her?”
I tried to smile.
For obvious reasons, I would never see Shane as my brother.
